27 Dec Lick your wounds – I have the right to love

To progress in life, to let go of resentment and to create a light heart, we need to heal our old wounds.

What we resist persists. In psychoanalysis we talk about the concept of “repetition”. It is the subconscious mind’s way to make us understand ourselves. We repeat the same thing over and over until the root comes into our conscious mind and we become aware of it. Of course, the wounds from childhood and their resulting patterns can be difficult to see since they are so deeply within us and that the wound happened long before we questioned what other people did to us. It is important to recognize that we act according to what we have learnt.

Depending on where we are born and what psycho-social and economical context we are surrounded with, the ways to deal with a wounded heart can be very different. One thing we always have in common though – we try to avoid pain as much as possible. So we don’t grief a wounded heart because the only way out is in. We are so afraid of the pain that we find any way possible to distract ourselves from feeling it. Anything coming from the external world is a tool to silence the inner voice. But like a boomerang it will always come back because we have not resolved it.

Another psychological expression is “the return of the trauma”. When we put ourselves in a situation of risk again, we will relive the original wound and its accompanied pain as if it happened for the very first time. So the pain comes back every time and we keep feeling as if the same thing happens to us again. We repeat because we did not heal our wounds to start with.

We live in a world of definitions, words and labels telling us who we are and what we like. Everything seems to come from the very rich external world. We collect things, words, ideas…. Decorating ourselves with it to define who we are. So naturally, when we feel empty, when there is a hole in our heart, we seek to fill it with things from that world. We develop habits to cover the void, to put a plaster on the wound. This can manifest itself in an urge to buy a lot of things, to become attached to an image, to have a bigger car or house, to numb the pain with alcohol and drugs…. Basically, look around you and you have it everywhere. We are even encouraged to continue with advertising telling us how much more fulfilled we’ll feel if only we buy a product.

A wounded heart is the greatest pain there is. If our purpose here is growth, progression and expansion then love is the core of our existence. When we fall in love, we feel complete. We feel the oneness that once was our natural existence. We let go of our guard and we dare to show ourselves naked and vulnerable. So when it goes wrong, when we are hurt, it is a knife cutting straight into the open wound.

We do not feel the oneness anymore. Actually, we feel isolated, lonely and sad. We might turn this into anger and resentment towards whoever hurt us. We close ourselves up to protect our hearts from pain again, building a safe wall around it. Nothing can come out, nothing can come in. We feel more and more separated from others and this is where the Ego steps on stage. It tells us (and we get it confirmed very often through misunderstood affirmations from the self healing world) that we must take care of ourselves because we cannot trust anyone else. We create a storyline in our heads with all these ideas of who we are, what other people have done wrong to us and how no one can truly understand us. The Ego rules our world. Listening to the inner voice or following our intuition is far from the agenda. Everything around us promises a feeling of oneness again if we purchase it, if we eat or drink it and we ask the people who surround us to define us. As long as it’s not to knock on that wall covering our heart, we’re ready to try it. So we never heal.

You are the sum of all your past experiences. The answer is within. Acknowledge that you keep on living the same pain, look within to find its root. Seek stillness through this work. You shall find stillness when you create space for yourself. When you create space around you and within, you will find silence. You will feel present. In that space, even if it’s open for just a split second, you relieve yourself from thought. In a place of stillness and non-thought, there is no Ego. Ego exists through thought. In that tiny space can you start to tap into something raw, something more you. You will find your wholeness and feel safe within. From this place, you can lick your wounds.